Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens (4 April 1792-11 August 1868) was a member of the US House of Representatives (W-PA 8) from 4 March 1849 to 3 March 1853, succeeding John Strohm and preceding Henry A. Muhlenberg, and from PA 9 from 4 March 1859 to 11 August 1868, succeeding Anthony Ellmaker Roberts and preceding Oliver James Dickey. He was a fervent abolitionist and the leader of the Radical Republicans in the House, and he was rivals with both Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson for their slowness to fight for black rights.

Biography
Thaddeus Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont in 1792, and he was raised in poverty and with a club foot, which caused a permanent limp. He moved to Pennsylvania as a young man and became a successful lawyer in Gettysburg, interesting himself in municipal affairs and then in politics. While serving in the State House, he advocated for free public education, and financial setbacks in 1842 caused him to move to Lancaster. There, he joined the Whigs, and he served in the US House of Representatives from 1849 to 1853. His opposition to slavery cost him re-election, and he had a brief flirtation with the Know Nothings before joining the Republican Party. He was again elected to the US Congress in 1858, and he opposed the expansion of slavery and concessions to the South as war came.

Stevens argued that slavery should not survive the American Civil War, and he was frustrated by President Abraham Lincoln's slowness to support his position. As the war turned in the Union's favor, Stevens advocated the extreme idea of redistributing land from the planters and distributing it among African-American freedmen, and his policy was not enacted by the moderates. After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, he came into conflict with President Andrew Johnson, who sought the rapid restoration of the southern states without guarantees for freedmen. In 1866, the Radical Republicans took control of the Reconstruction away from Johnson, and Stevens secured articles of impeachment against the President after he attemtped to fire Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. He died in office in 1868.